


don't forget to turn on the light

by QueenWithABeeThrone



Series: this ain't no truth or dare (mike&eleven roleswap au) [3]
Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Role Reversal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-24
Updated: 2017-11-24
Packaged: 2019-02-06 07:21:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12812511
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenWithABeeThrone/pseuds/QueenWithABeeThrone
Summary: “I found something for your slingshot,” Jane says to Lucas, who scowls at her and rolls his eyes.“It’s a wrist rocket,” he insists.or: Lev goes exploring. Jane, Dustin and Lucas go through a school day and worry about Will, and the weirdo in Dustin's storm cellar.





	don't forget to turn on the light

**Author's Note:**

> title is from David Bowie's "Drive-In Saturday".

Jane, Lev finds out, has something called school.

“You don’t have school?” she asks when he asks her what it is. The space between her eyebrows scrunches up, the way it does when she’s confused and is trying to understand him. “Are you home-schooled?”

He frowns. “No,” he hazards. “What’s _home-schooled_?”

“Um,” says Jane, frowning too. She stuffs a notebook into her backpack, and says, “Okay, so: school is where you usually go to learn stuff, everyday. You sit down in a classroom with other kids and a teacher stands in front and tells you about Math, or English, or science. And you do that _everyday._ ” She sighs, heavily.

Lev watches her throw more things into her backpack, from pencils and pens to a small paper bag with her snacks. “And home-schooled?” he presses.

“I’m getting there,” Jane says, zipping up her bag. “When you’re home-schooled, it means you still learn stuff, only you’re doing it at home and your mom or your dad or someone else teaches you things.” She hoists her bag up onto her shoulders and says, “I wanted to be home-schooled once. My dad said _no_ , because he hated Math and didn’t want to teach it.”

Jane’s dad, the police chief. Lev’s heard him around the trailer a few times, talking to Jane. He doesn’t talk to her the same way Papa does to Lev—he’s rougher, more gruff, but somehow warmer too. Papa wouldn’t take the time to tell Lev to be careful and call him if he was ever in trouble, not the way Jane’s dad does.

He picks up her radio, fiddles idly with the dials.

Jane, after a moment, sits down next to him. “You can come with me,” she says. “Not to school—there’s too many people around, and I can’t explain you away. But I can take you to Dustin’s storm cellar.”

Dustin’s storm cellar has Will’s pictures, and what’s more, it has the blanket fort. Lev grins and nods.

Jane smiles at him. She’s pretty when she smiles, he thinks.

“Okay,” she says, hopping off the bed. “Grab a helmet,” and she flaps her hand toward the closet door, “and let’s go.”

\--

He hangs on tight, the wind whipping past him and Jane as her bike all but flies down the road. For some reason she’s the one without a helmet, which worries him a little bit.

He decides that if they fall, he’ll just use his powers to keep them both safe.

They make it up to Dustin’s house, before Jane takes them off the road and onto a route she claims won’t get them seen by Dustin’s mom. It’s not the best route, because Lev gets smacked in the face with a branch and Jane almost bikes over a cat, but eventually they stop near the storm cellar.

Lev hops off and spits out a leaf.

“Yeah, sorry about that,” says Jane, making a face.

“ _Bad_ ,” he says, waving a frustrated hand in the general direction of the branch that smacked him in the face.

“Tell me about it,” says Jane, taking her bag off her shoulders and unzipping it. She fishes her walkie-talkie out from the depths of her bag, and pulls the antennae out. “Dustin?” she says into it. “Dustin, this is Jane. Do you copy? Over.”

“This is Dustin,” Dustin’s voice crackles over the receiver, after a minute. “I copy. What’s up? Over.”

“Lev and I are at your storm cellar,” says Jane. “Where are you? Over.”

“Give me a sec,” Dustin answers, “over and out.”

Jane slumps against a tree and sighs. “He’s coming out,” she says.

Lev sits down next to her. “What’s it like?” he asks.

“Hm?”

“School,” he clarifies.

“Oh,” she says. “Well. The classes are fun, if you have a good teacher and you like what they’re teaching. If not, it’s just— _ugh._ ” She rolls her eyes upwards and sighs heavily. “And there’s bullies. There’s always bullies.”

“Bullies?”

“People who like to make fun of you for something that’s a part of you,” says Jane. “People who like to hurt you because that’s fun for them.” She scowls, picks up a rock, and tosses it angrily at another tree. “They’re mouth-breathers.”

“Mouth-breather’s bad?” says Lev.

“Very bad,” Jane agrees. “It means they’re dumb.”

Lev turns the word over in his head. He says, “Mouth-breather,” out loud, trying to get it right.

“Mm-hmm,” says Jane. “You got it.”

“Jane! Lev!” calls Dustin, and the two of them scramble to their feet as Dustin comes into view, carrying a plate of— _waffles_. “You’re in luck, my mom just left. She also left this.”

Lev grabs a waffle off the plate and bites down. His fingers are getting sticky, from the excess syrup, but he doesn’t care. This is an amazing waffle.

“Delicious, right?” says Dustin, proudly. “My mom makes the _best_ waffles.”

“I think that’s Lucas’s mom,” says Jane.

“She doesn’t have the Henderson family recipe for waffles,” says Dustin.

“She doesn’t soak them in maple syrup,” Jane shoots back.

“You take your waffles any other way then?” Dustin says, setting his hands on his hips.

“It’s good,” says Lev, through a mouthful of waffle.

Dustin points at him and says, triumphant, “Ha! Lev agrees with me!”

“Lev hasn’t ever tasted Mrs. Sinclair’s waffles,” says Jane, stubbornly. She turns to him and says, “Once Lucas warms up to you, and once you’re not being followed by bad people, maybe we can all eat Mrs. Sinclair’s waffles. They’re delicious, I promise.”

If she’s promising, she must be serious about this. Lev nods, and bites into his waffle again.

Dustin sighs. “All right, come on. We still have to pick up Lucas after this.”

\--

Dustin gives him some ground rules:

1\. Stay in the cellar.

2\. Don’t go outside, especially in the late afternoon when Dustin’s mother is home from work, unless previously agreed on.

3\. Use the radio if he needs anything. (“Just don’t use it during school,” says Dustin, “or we’re gonna get in trouble.”)

4\. They’ll be back at three-fifteen. _Three one five on this watch,_ Jane explains, strapping her watch onto his wrist. It’s a little looser on his wrist than hers, but it hides his tattoo well.

Lev doesn’t tell them, because obviously Jane and Dustin have taken his warnings about the bad men to heart and he can’t blame them for that, but. Well. He wants to step outside, and anyway, it’s not late afternoon and Dustin’s mother isn’t home yet.

So he creeps out of the cellar. The door to Dustin’s house isn’t very far away, isn’t even locked, so he simply pushes it open and steps inside.

He blinks.

Jane’s house—does it count as a house, he wonders—had been messy. Empty boxes and crushed cans had been scattered around the place, with lots of files taking up the table, and even Jane’s room was a little bit messy, with her toys and books all over the floor.

Dustin’s house isn’t messy. It’s very clean, there’s nothing on the floor except muddy paw prints belonging to a pet, and cozy too. He sits down in a huge chair, with a soft back, and practically sinks into it. It’s so _soft._

He stands up, opens the first door he sees with only some effort.

It’s—well, it’s _someone’s_ bedroom, that’s for sure. He doesn’t know who it belongs to, though, who would paint their bedroom in tones of white and brown. Or who would have a basket for something called a “mews”.

Something meows, behind him. He blinks and turns to look at an orange-and-white cat—

(— _a null result, sir_ —

— _No! No! Papa!_ )

He blinks. The cat meows at him again, and hops into the basket.

He gets out of the bedroom, and makes sure to lock the door. Then he walks, as fast as possible, to another room. This one’s locked, but he concentrates and the lock clicks open, the door swings wide to let him in.

Another bedroom, but no cat this time. He steps inside, sure to avoid the various toys scattered around the floor, and his eyes land on a multitude of pictures, tacked up on a cork board.

Pictures of Jane. Of Dustin. Of Lucas. Of their missing friend Will. Of adults Lev has never known. They’re smiling in many of them, outright laughing in a few.

He touches one in particular, a picture of Jane, Dustin, Lucas and Will holding up a golden trophy in triumph. They’re grinning at the camera, Lucas sticking up two fingers behind Dustin’s head.

Here’s another: four pictures in a line, of Dustin and Lucas making faces at a camera. Another: a younger Dustin, playing with sand in a box. Another: a woman Lev’s never met, hugging a Dustin so much younger than the one Lev knows, one with a smaller backpack on his back and a gap-toothed grin.

Papa never took pictures. Papa wouldn’t hug him for simply being there the way the woman is hugging Dustin in the pictures, or worry about him the way Jane’s dad seems to worry about Jane. No one at the lab would even think about letting him play with sand in a box, let alone take pictures of him in the middle of playing.

He shuts his eyes against the hot sting of tears.

He wants this. He wants pictures, and hugs, and sand in boxes and golden trophies and his own room with posters and toys and friends, people who care about him beyond the things he can do for them. He wants it so much that his heart aches with the yearning.

He breathes in, then out. He reaches up to wipe the tears from his eyes.

Then, with one last lingering look at the pictures, he walks away.

\--

Will’s desk is empty, at school.

It’s odd. Jane keeps looking over at his desk, expecting to see her friend hunched over his notebook, drawing or taking notes or thinking up some ideas to pass to Dustin for the next campaign. Every time she does, he’s just—not there. It throws her off-balance, like she’s riding her bike down a road she _should_ know, with twists and turns that weren’t there before.

Mr. Clarke’s thrown off, too, almost calls out _Byers_ in class before he remembers Will isn’t there to respond. Everyone’s off, today, and Will’s disappearance is at the heart of it.

Jane thinks she’s doing a pretty admirable job, all things considered, of pretending she’s only as off-kilter as everyone else is. Lev’s still in Dustin’s storm cellar, and so far Dustin’s mom hasn’t come to school with a grave question for her son about the boy in his cellar, so their plan, such as it is, is working out admirably.

“We don’t have a plan,” Dustin points out, once they get some free time to themselves.

“Sure we do,” Lucas says. “We’re gonna find Will. Now help me get some rocks for my wrist rocket so we're prepared if we run into anything.”

“Slingshot.”

“ _Wrist rocket._ ”

Jane picks up a rock, tosses it up and down in the air. She wonders if Lev would like rocks. He seems to like everything, or at least he looks at everything like he’s seeing it all for the first time. What kind of bad place did he come from that everything’s so new to him?

“I found something for your slingshot,” she says to Lucas, who scowls at her and rolls his eyes.

“It’s a _wrist rocket_ ,” he insists.

“I don’t even know why we need to bring it along,” says Dustin, picking up a rock. “Lev’s got superpowers! Like the X-Men.”

“So he messed up your cellar with his mind,” says Lucas, unimpressed. “That doesn’t make him a superhero, that just makes him even weirder than he already is.”

“It makes him one step closer to being a superhero,” Dustin argues. “He’s a weapon all by himself.”

“He’s a weird kid we found in the woods!”

“He’s a person,” says Jane, inserting herself in between them before they can start bickering again. “He’s not a weapon, he’s just—a kid who got lost and who’s got bad people after him.”

“You really believe that?” says Lucas.

“Of course,” she says. “I don’t know why you don’t.”

“I don’t have a crush on him,” says Lucas.

“I do not!”

“Yeah, you do,” says Lucas, jabbing her in the side with his elbow. She yelps, surprised. “You’re always like,” and he pitches his voice higher, takes her hand and kneels down, “ _oh, Lev, you’re so cool and handsome, will you marry me—_ ”

“Oh my god, shut _up_ Lucas,” says Jane, embarrassed, yanking her hand away.

Lucas laughs. “ _I like your face!_ ” he continues, and Jane punches his shoulder with a huff. “Ow! Hey, watch it.”

“Shut _up_ ,” she huffs, but she can’t help the little smile.

“Yeah, shut up, Sinclair,” comes Troy’s voice, and Jane’s good mood evaporates like dew in the sun. “No one _cares_.”

“Oh,” says Dustin, with the sort of enthusiasm he reserves only for watching paint dry, as Troy and James step into view. “You guys again?”

“What do you want?” snaps Jane.

“Oh, come on, princess,” drawls James, “it’s a free country. We can sit wherever we want.”

“Which means we should be asking you,” says Troy, almost cheerful, “what you freaks are doing back here.” He looks around, almost theatrically, and says, “Oh, hey! Where’s the fairy? Bet he’s in fairyland flapping around—”

Jane starts forward to take a swing, and almost immediately Dustin grabs hold of her arm. “It isn’t worth it,” he says. “It isn’t _worth it_ , Jane, come on.”

Lucas almost starts forward too, but Jane sees Dustin’s other hand reach out to hold on to the back of Lucas’ shirt. “We have to find Will,” Dustin insists, keeping them back.

Right. If she gets into trouble for starting a fight, they won’t be able to find Will. They _have to_.

She backs down, glares at Troy instead. “He’s missing,” she says.

“He’s probably dead,” says James, airily.

“Killed by some other queer, I bet,” says Troy, with a grin. Dustin almost starts forward, before Jane grabs his sleeve.

“He’s _not_ ,” snaps Lucas. “Go pick on somebody else for once.”

“You’re _not funny_ ,” says Dustin.

“Yeah, but you’re the ones in our space, picking up _our_ rocks,” says Troy. “Go find rocks somewhere else, losers. Everything here’s ours.” He makes a dismissive gesture, and Jane wants nothing more than to punch that stupid smug grin off his stupid face.

“Fine, you can have it,” Lucas says, glaring up at the two boys. “Whatever happened to this being a free country, though?”

“Come on, you guys, let’s go,” Dustin urges. Jane sighs, and steps forward.

“Firtht I wanna thee Toothleth do the thing,” says Troy, blocking her way and imitating Dustin’s lisp in a truly atrocious impression.

“Oh, _come on_ ,” says Jane. “Do you want us to leave or not?!”

“First of all,” says Dustin, with a sigh, “I have creidocranial dysplasia. My adult teeth haven’t grown in yet.” He looks up at Troy, and at James, and says, “Second, come on, I don’t lisp that much.”

“Just let us _go_ , already,” Lucas complains. “We already got what we came for, anyway.”

“Not until we see it,” James stubbornly declares.

Jane’s hands clench into fists, before Lucas nudges her side with his elbow. She shuts her eyes and exhales—it’s not a huge price to pay, she supposes, but she hates giving ground to these bullies. On any other day she wouldn’t.

But if she gets in trouble then she’ll be late, and she _promised_ to come back as soon as she could.

So she reins herself in and lets Dustin do the thing. Troy and James laugh, and step aside to let them pass.

Jane doesn’t see Troy stick out his foot until it’s too late and she’s sprawled out on the ground. She tastes copper—she’s bitten her tongue.

“You _sickos_ ,” she spits at them, as Lucas hauls her up to her feet, his and Dustin’s hands on her arms to keep her from launching herself at the two boys. They might be taller than her but she can _take them_ dammit, if they’d just _let her_ —

“Jane,” Lucas says, “Jane, _Janey_ —”

Jane stops fighting, sucks in a breath. Lets it go.

“They aren’t important,” says Dustin, as he and Lucas guide her away from the two boys, from the fight she wants so badly. “They’re gonna grow up to be gas station attendants, don’t worry about them.”

“Finding Will’s more important, anyway,” says Lucas. He holds the rock up and says, “So, what do you guys think about this one?”

“Looks good to me,” Dustin says, approvingly.

“It’s nice and sharp,” says Jane, with a little grin.

“I knew it,” says Lucas, satisfied, as he pockets the rock. “It’s the monster-killer.”

\--

She and Lucas have math class together, which is good, because Jane’s dad hasn’t done anything even vaguely math-shaped since he was in high school, and Lucas is the best out of the party at it, has always been.

Neither of them are quite listening to the teacher right now, though.

“Did your dad turn anything up?” Lucas asks her, quietly.

“Not a lot,” says Jane, shaking her head. “He promised to keep me updated if he did, though.”

Lucas sighs. “And if the cops can’t find Will, we can,” he says.

“Yeah, we’ve got Lev,” says Jane. “He knows where Will is.”

“Yeah, but he hasn’t said,” Lucas points out.

“Why do you hate him so much?” Jane asks.

“I _don’t_ ,” says Lucas, shaking his head. “I just think he’s real suspicious. He shows up in the woods just after Will vanishes—that can’t be a coincidence.” He breathes out. “Maybe he’s got something to do with it.”

“He’s just a _kid_ ,” Jane whispers.

“I _know_ ,” says Lucas. “That’s why I said _maybe_. I just—don’t trust him, that’s all.”

“But you trust me?” she asks.

Lucas smiles, a little soft. There’s her best friend, the boy who’d pass her his X-Men comics every sleepover so she could read under the covers. “Of course,” he tells her. “You’re our paladin, Jane. I’d trust you with my life.”

“And I trust Lev with mine,” she tells him.

Lucas lets out a long sigh. “Fine,” he says. “He’s still a weirdo, though. And I’m _still_ not sure if we can trust him, but I trust you.”

“That’s enough for me,” says Jane.

“Mr. Sinclair, Ms. Hopper,” comes the teacher’s call, “I suppose you both have something to discuss with the class?”

“Nope!” Jane says, at the same time Lucas blurts out, “Nothing at all!”


End file.
